Create Seamless Mask Transitions in Final Cut Pro (No Plugins)

Today we're making that cool foreground wipe transition Sam Kolder used in his Memories of Saudi video, where something sweeps into frame and wipes you into the next shot. It's fairly easy, it looks great, and I've used this kind of masking transition in a couple of my own films. No plugins needed.

The shot you need

The most important thing is a shot where something comes into frame and covers nearly all of it, an arm, a torch, a passing object. Honestly the hardest part of these transitions is just spotting the opportunities, so keep them in mind while you're filming. Sam clearly shot that fire-cave moment knowing he'd swing the torch across the lens to wipe out of the shot.

Prep the clips

Scale in until your wipe element (the arm, say) covers most of the frame, which also hides any stray fingers or edges and makes the masking easier. If you shot in slow motion, speed-ramp the beginning so the arm doesn't drift in slowly, because that looks bad and takes longer to mask. Find where you want it to slow back down, press Shift B, and bump the speed up, around 2x usually works.

Draw and animate the mask

Grab the Draw Mask effect from the effects browser and drop it on your second clip. Outline the area (hold Command and drag to curve your points), and that section turns black, you've basically cut a hole in your video. Now animate that hole to follow the arm as it comes in. Click original so you can see what you're doing, make sure the keyframe buttons under Transform and Control Points are on, then step forward 2 or 3 frames at a time and adjust the mask. Final Cut calculates the path between your keyframes, but it's not always perfect, so go back through and clean up the alignment at the end.

Composite, feather, and blend

Switch the clip to Composite, place your second shot over the first, and add a gap clip underneath so the magnetic timeline doesn't take over. Then feather the mask so the edges aren't harsh, just find the amount that looks natural. A couple of extra touches really sell it: add a shape mask to bring down the exposure of anything distracting (like an arm that got in the way), and match the focus of the first shot by adding a gaussian blur that gradually blurs as the second shot wipes over. Throw some sound effects on and you're done.